Origin of the word "spraunce"

I was recently talking to someone who said a restaurant was spraunce, meaning it was well-presented and high-quality (that being the sense I was familiar with). We briefly discussed the fact that he thought spraunce also implied expensive, whereas I wasn't aware of that connotation.

I was surprised when it turned out none of several other people in that conversation knew the word at all. Even more surprised to find out later that it doesn't seem to be in any dictionaries. And positively gobsmacked after going online and discovering even Google doesn't seem to know it.

It took me several minutes to unearth this single reference, where it's actually to spraunce up. That clearly suggests alliteration / confusion with to spruce up. I'm happy to accept that as being a possible component of the origin, but it doesn't really feel like the whole story.

Does anyone else know the word? Or anything about its origins and usage?

Green's Dictionary of Slang has sprauncy as "smart or showy in appearance or sound of voice". The earliest usage cited is 1957. It suggests sprauncy is derived from sprouncey, meaning cheerful (I can't find that online either).

Edit: I've just turned up another source here that concurs (the Oxford Dictionary of Slang, filtered by Answers.com).

Second edit: FumbleFingers has run down a second source here which suggests it is a Jewish coinage, combining the word shapar, meaning beautiful, with fancy.

OED Online suggests 'sprauncy' (slang) is "perhaps related to dialect sprouncey cheerful (Eng. Dial. Dict.)". The English Dialect Dictionary, in turn, gives a definition of 'sprouncey' garnered from The Ancient Language and Dialect of Cornwall (F.W.P. Jago, 1882):

cheerful, jolly; slightly intoxicated.

The phonetic resonance of 'sprouncey' in 'sprauncy' is clear. The semantic echo of "cheerful, jolly; slightly intoxicated" in "smart or showy in appearance or sound of voice" (OED Online), however, is nowhere near as definite, but such a semantic shift is a potentially likely development in the 70 years intervening between the documented appearance in the dialect of Cornwall and the use of 'sprauncy' first attested from 1957 (as remarked in a comment on another answer, and likewise as given in OED Online).

Searches for the forms 'sproncy' and 'sprauntsy' (as listed in OED Online) in readily available online corpora produced little. Both forms appear in The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (Eric Partridge, 2006; also found in related editions):

The same reference documents a verb form, 'spronce':

'Sprauntsy' did not garner any other significant search hits in Google Books or Hathi Trust. 'Sproncy', however, was found in early 20th Century volumes of The American Kennel Club Stud-book, beginning in 1901 with this entry:

The 'sproncy' form also appears in The Vineyard (September, 1920), in a story titled "Billy Barnicott" (Greville MacDonald), where it is glossed, possibly by an editor or the author, as 'excitable':

'Sproncy' in the sense of 'excitable' seems unrelated, or at best obliquely related, to the earlier "cheerful, jolly; slightly intoxicated" and the later "smart or showy in appearance or sound of voice" senses.

Chambers has sprauncy meaning dapper, smart. origin said to be obsc. possibly connected with dialect sprouncey meaning cheerful, jolly.

I always knew the word as sprauncing, meaning to "flannell" someone. I'm sure I heard it in an episode of Only Fools and Horses, the chandelier episode :o)